There's just ZERO excuse for the ignorance demonstrated on this site, with a resource like the internet available. The Establishment (Corporations and their lackeys in Govt/Education/Media/Tax-exempts) has done a SUPERB job of brainwashing y'all!

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Global Warming:A Chilling Perspective

Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants.

At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished.

CO2 is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Plants absorb CO2 and emit oxygen as a waste product. Humans and animals breathe oxygen and emit CO2 as a waste product. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient, not a pollutant, and all life-- plants and animals alike-- benefit from more of it. All life on earth is carbon-based and CO2 is an essential ingredient. When plant-growers want to stimulate plant growth, they introduce more carbon dioxide.

CO2 that goes into the atmosphere does not stay there but is continually recycled by terrestrial plant life and earth's oceans-- the great retirement home for most terrestrial carbon dioxide.

If we are in a global warming crisis today, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have a negligible effect on global climate!

Too bad y'all's skepticism only applies to 'right-wingers' and not to PC dogma.

The major greenhouse gas that drives global warming also is rapidly raising the acidity of the world's oceans, threatening widespread destruction of the tiny shell-building organisms that form the base of the entire marine food web and create corral reefs, a team of government-sponsored scientists said Wednesday.

The culprit is carbon dioxide. As billions of tons of the carbon in the gas pour from industrial emissions into the ocean, it is causing "the most dramatic changes in marine chemistry in the past 650,000 years," said Richard Feely, a federal oceanographer in Seattle and one of the team's leaders.

The landmark report by the research group, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey, was released Wednesday, and the findings are indisputable, said one lead scientist.

"Unlike any possible controversy over global warming, as you increase carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, you're driving carbon into the oceans and increasing the ocean's acidity -- and this is not debatable," said Joan Kleypas, an ecologist and geologist in Boulder, Colo.

The 88-page report resulted from a workshop held last year in Florida, where more than 50 marine scientists from nine nations gathered to pool their research results and reached consensus on the problem.

The scientists noted that carbon changes the ocean's chemical nature from normally alkaline to abnormally acidic. That change, in turn, lowers the concentration of carbonate ions, which are the building blocks of the calcium carbonate that many of the most important marine organisms use to grow their shells and create the structures that form coral reefs that provide vital habitat for fish and other marine species, the scientists explained.

The pace of change from alkaline to acidic water, the report said, has increased rapidly over the past 200 years as industrial carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dumped more carbon into the world's oceans. For hundreds of thousands of years before that, the acidity of the world's oceans remained steady based on the study of ice cores, the scientists said.

Between 1800 and 1994, the oceans worldwide absorbed more than 118 billion metric tons of carbon, according to Feely of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. By now, he said, that total has increased to 142 billion tons, with more than 2 billion tons entering the oceans every year.

"The rate of change in the ocean's chemistry now is truly extraordinary," said Kleypas of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the senior author of the report.

Organisms that build their shells of calcium carbonate are known as marine calcifiers, and they include the microscopic plankton creatures called coccolithophores and the foraminifera -- or forams, as they're known -- that exist in the seas by the millions at the base of the marine food chain.

"They are a major food source supporting fish like salmon, mackerel and cod, and the shells of the calcifiers are highly susceptible to dissolving in the increasingly corrosive acid waters," said Victoria Fabry, a biological oceanographer at Cal State San Marcos. "We don't yet know how those organisms will adapt to the chemical change, but their populations are sure to decline by the end of the century, or even in the next 50 years."

After years of laboratory experiments and research cruises analyzing chemical changes in ocean waters from the tropics to the Arctic, the scientists are unanimous both in their report's conclusions that the marine calcifiers are in danger and in their knowledge that many details of the threat are still uncertain.

The effects of large-scale changes in ocean chemistry on marine ecology are poorly understood, but the changes themselves are clear, and marine life is bound to change dramatically within coming decades, the scientists agreed.

"This is a call to arms," said Christopher Sabine, an engineer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle. "It's a major issue, and we need to make it a major international focus of research."

First, I would like libertine to show us what credibility he has in determining what science is credible, and what is not? He says the corporations have brainwashed us, but im curious as to what funds his sources.

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Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants.

You always can tell when you are reading advocacy vs. science just by the language used.

Contrarians always try to downplay things. You hear words like "only" and "just" a whole lot. Well, "only" a few degrees in raised temperatures cause a dramatic drop in crop production. "Just" a few degrees can expand deserts for many mile.

Now, to relate this to the quoted statement above. Those "only 6 billion" tons add up. Its 6 billion, plus 6 billion the next year plus 6 billion the next. It increases a whole lot. Since 1980 we have put 120 billion tons in the atmosphere. This matters for a few reasons.

1) CO2 has an atmospheric lifespan of around 100 years. This means that the emissions we put in, last longer than we do. This allows the great buildup.

2) The earth has carbon sinks. These are things that absorb co2. Well, before the industrial revolution, the output from the natural sources, and the input from the sinks were at about equilibrium. Now, we are upsetting that balance and creating a net increase. The oceans are reaching their limit (becoming acidic as someone mentioned) and, because of the warming, we are seeing a negative feedback where the oceans warm, and as we know, gases cant dissolve as well in warmer water, so more co2 is released. This negative feedback is often included in "natural" co2 statistics, when it actually come from anthropogenic sources.

This is why not a single scientist in the field would give any consideration to anything in the above quoted statement.

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At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished.

As I predicted, it is belittling reality. How many of us would be able to survive in "former geologic times"? Crops would never be able to grow, people on the coasts would be flooded, drought would be rampant. Sure, co2 has been much higher, but people were not also around then for it to matter.

As for co2 being a "minor constituent" Well, only 2*10 -6 grams (micro grams) of VX gas can kill someone. Just because something is small, or occurs in minute quantities doesn't mean it cant have grave effects.

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CO2 is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Plants absorb CO2 and emit oxygen as a waste product. Humans and animals breathe oxygen and emit CO2 as a waste product. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient, not a pollutant, and all life-- plants and animals alike-- benefit from more of it. All life on earth is carbon-based and CO2 is an essential ingredient. When plant-growers want to stimulate plant growth, they introduce more carbon dioxide.

As a botanist, this is just bullshit. Higher co2 concentrations retard plant growth, and often times can be harmful.. High O2 concentration are equally as damaging to humans.

This also displays an ignorance of science because its well known that more co2 would only benefit plants if co2 was the limiting factor in plant growth. Any living thing can only grow as fast as what is the limiting factor in its growth. CO2 has never been one of them.

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CO2 that goes into the atmosphere does not stay there but is continually recycled by terrestrial plant life and earth's oceans-- the great retirement home for most terrestrial carbon dioxide.

It is cycled, but the oceans can only take in so much. But i thought you said earlier, the oceans release co2?

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If we are in a global warming crisis today, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have a negligible effect on global climate!

Last, but not least, contrarians always add in the "cost" issue. Im curious as to what a drop in crop production, limited availability of water, coastal cities flooding, increased disease would cost?

I know libertine will never respond to this, or even debate the science with me. Contrarians never do. They can only post scientifically inaccurate talking points about issues they themselves dont even understand.

However, if Lib does wish to debate the science, I will respect him for that, however, from my experience with him, and other contrarians, ive learned to to hold my breath.

_________________"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, is like administering medicine to the dead." -- THOMAS PAINE

First, I would like libertine to show us what credibility he has in determining what science is credible, and what is not? He says the corporations have brainwashed us, but im curious as to what funds his sources.

Other Funding SourcesThe Capital Research Center (CRC) formerly had a profile on CEI in its database on non-profit groups which listed corporate foundations and other groups not identified by Media Transparency. [36] However, since its profile was linked to this page in 2004, the profile on CEI has been removed from the database.

CEI does not publish a list of its institutional donors. However, in a CEI report sent to Philip Morris, the think tank identified a range of companies and foundations as having given $10,000 or more. [37] Contributors included:

In a 2006 profile of CEI and other global warming skeptics, Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach noted that "the most generous sponsors" of CEI's 2005 annual dinner were "the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, Exxon Mobil, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and Pfizer. Other contributors included General Motors, the American Petroleum Institute, the American Plastics Council, the Chlorine Chemistry Council and Arch Coal." [38]

This article was written by Willie Soon, who is a member of the George C. Marshall Institute. Check out who funds this phoney science organization. It's many of the the same people and corporations who fund the Competitive Enterprise Institute!

I've found that those same contraians always try to change the subject when I ask them how many people were alive the last time the earth went through a heating cycle like it appears to be doing now...

Annnnnnnd just how civilized were they?

IMO, it doesn't really MATTER what is causing the climate changes... what matters is that we DO something about it BEFORE it's too late...

The world's largest energy company is still spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund European organisations that seek to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on global warming and undermine support for legislation to curb emission of greenhouse gases.

Data collated by a Brussels-based watchdog reveals that ExxonMobil has put money into projects that criticise the Kyoto treaty and question the findings of scientific groups. Environmental campaigners say Texas-based Exxon is trying to influence opinion-makers in Brussels because Europe - rather than the US - is the driving force for action on climate change.

"ExxonMobil invests significant amounts in letting think-tanks, seemingly respectable sources, sow doubts about the need for EU governments to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Olivier Hoedeman, of the Corporate Europe Observatory. "Covert funding for climate sceptics is deeply hypocritical because ExxonMobil spends major sums on advertising to present itself as an environmentally responsible company."

It has long been known that the oil giant, which in 2005 recorded an all-time record for quarterly income, has spent millions of dollars to fund climate sceptics. Exactly how much is unknown but some estimates suggest $19m (£9.7m) since 1998.

In its 2005 report, Mr Hoedeman's group details payments by ExxonMobil to two organisations the International Policy Network, which received $130,000 and the Centre for the New Europe (CNE), which received $50,000.

The Observatory suspects Exxon has also funded other groups engaged in undermining legislation. Its report said: "There is mounting evidence that many EU-focused think-tanks are heavily funded by corporations and this raises serious concerns about their agenda and their independence." The two groups cited in the report have long been accused of denying climate change. Greenpeace's ExxonSecret website notes that in 2004 the network issued a press release criticising the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, saying it had "intentionally exaggerated its estimates of temperature increases by using highly implausible scenarios of future growth in emissions of greenhouse gases".

Greenpeace also lists a 2004 posting on CNE's website which claimed: "The Kyoto Protocol is failing because it is ineffective, costly, and unfair. It is also 'scientifically flawed'."

Last year The Independent revealed how a US-based lobbying group which received substantial funding from Exxon was seeking to develop a Europe-wide network of think-tanks, journalists and major businesses to act against legislation to counter climate change. The organisation claimed its approaches had been flatly rejected.

Kert Davies of Greenpeace said: "Europe is leading the world right now in terms of climate policy. Exxon know that if they can [enlist] lobbyists they may be able to slow things down. That is the tactic right now."

Such is the concern about ExxonMobil that earlier this year the Royal Society, considered Britain's leading scientific academy, wrote to it asking that it stop funding groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".

Ellen Bisnath, a network spokeswoman, confirmed that the organisation had accepted $130,000 from the oil company. She said: "We are an independent think-tank and we are contributing to the scientific debate on climate change."

CNE's president, Stephen Pollard, said: "We did get a payment in 2005 for a project which had nothing to do with climate change." He said under his leadership CNE was "not in the climate change denial business".

In a statement ExxonMobil said: "Our support extends to a fairly broad array of organisations that research significant domestic and foreign policy issues and promote discussion on issues of direct relevance to the company."

What the sponsored sceptics say

* "Now that the costs of EU environmental policies are becoming unsustainable - as the gap between the American and European rate of growth shows - "scepticism" begins to gain consideration. How long will it take to reject environmental policies that harm the economy while not making better the environment?"

Centre for the New Europe website

* "Some believe climate change is an exceptional environmental problem that requires global regulation. By reducing emissions now, it is said, we buy insurance against future catastrophic changes. But against what exactly is Kyoto insuring, and at what price? By itself, Kyoto will have little if any impact on the global climate."

International Policy Network website

"In fact, the European Union can no longer credibly blame the United States about the current state of Kyoto. The question now is whether the European Union will accept Kyoto's failure, and its own, and accept a more practical rethinking of the issue for the future. If not, it only has itself to blame."

Website of European Enterprise Institute, accused of accepting Exxon funding

Global warming has begun to change the way microscopic plant life in the oceans absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere - a trend that could lead to a dramatic increase in the heating power of the greenhouse effect.

This NASA Aqua satellite image released in 2003 shows clouds of phytoplankton thriving in the cold, nutrient-rich waters off of Greenland's eastern coast. A new study of the oceans suggests that phytoplankton -- the vital first link in the food chain of the seas -- will be hugely affected by global warming. (AFP/NASA-HO/File)

Satellite data gathered over the past 10 years has shown for the first time that the growth of marine phytoplankton - the basis of the entire ocean food chain - is being adversely affected by rising sea temperatures.

Scientists have found that as the oceans become warmer, they are less able to support the phytoplankton that have been an important influence on moderating climate change.

The fear is that as sea temperatures continue to rise as a result of global warming, the loss of phytoplankton will lead to a positive-feedback cycle, where increases in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere leads to warmer oceans, and warmer oceans lead to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations.

A team of American scientists used a Nasa satellite to study global concentrations of phytoplankton over the past two decades to see how ocean productivity - as measured by the density of chlorophyll, the pigment of photosynthesis - changes with sea temperatures.

The result was a clear link between warmer oceans and decreases in ocean productivity, said Michael Behrenfeld, professor of botany at Oregon State University and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

"Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are a key part of global warming. This study shows that as the climate warms, phytoplankton production goes down, but this also means that carbon dioxide uptake by the ocean plants will decrease," Professor Behrenfeld said. "That would allow carbon dioxide to accumulate more rapidly in the atmosphere, making the problem worse."

As average global sea temperatures increase, the growing season in some parts of the ocean at high latitudes is extended. This has the effect of boosting phytoplankton growth in these regions. But for most other areas of the world, the opposite occurs, because phytoplankton are starved of nutrients when sea temperatures rise too high.

Phytoplankton needs nutrients and sunlight to grow and in warmer, tropical oceans, the levels of nutrients become the limiting factor because there are few "upwelling" currents from the sea bed to bring nitrogen, phosphorus and iron to the surface layers.

In tropical seas, the water forms layers, with warm water sitting on top of cooler water. When seawater becomes layered or stratified in this way, nutrients are prevented from rising to the surface where the phytoplankton live.

This is why cooler oceans at higher latitudes in the north and south are more productive than tropical oceans near the equator.

Global warming is having the effect of extending the range of nutrient-poor regions of the ocean to include areas that were richer in phytoplankton "blooms" on which all other marine life depends.

Despite their small size, phytoplankton account for about half of the photosynthesis carried out by all plants on Earth. And phytoplankton have a high turnover because they are quickly eaten by small marine animals - making them even more vulnerable to climate change.

"This fast turnover and the fact that phytoplankton are limited to a thin veneer of the ocean surface, where there is enough sunlight to sustain photosynthesis, makes them very responsive to climate change," Professor Behrenfeld said. "This was why we could relate productivity changes to climate variability in only a 10-year record. Such connections would be much harder to detect from space for terrestrial plant biomass."